Tag Archives: nuclear

AI: Google co-founder Sergey Brin warns the current boom in artificial intelligence has created a “technology renaissance”that contains many potential threats — In the company’s annual Founders’ Letter, the Alphabet president struck a note of caution. “The new spring in artificial intelligence is the most significant development in computing in my lifetime,” writes Brin. “Every month, there are stunning new applications and transformative new techniques.” But, he adds, “such powerful tools also bring with them new questions and responsibilities.” [Meanwhile I have been writing of Sergei Brin’s – and Google’s – dark side for well over a decade.]

Companies throughout China are using brainwave sensors to train workers and screen for mental fitness — More than a dozen factories are requiring workers to wear devices that use artificial intelligence to monitor their emotions. While officials say this saves money, the implications for workers are deeply troubling.

Data: and you thought Cambridge Analytica was bad …. how about Thiel’s Palantir getting the same data?British lawmakers grilled Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer last week, asking him questions about the social media company’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which roughly 87 million Facebook users had their data pilfered through a personality quiz app. When one of the members of Parliament asked about Palantir having “improper access” to user data, Schroepfer confirmed the company was looking into concerns about Palantir, billionaire Peter Thiel’s highly secretive surveillance and data-analytics company that has worked with the CIA, NSA and FBI [and New Zealand’s National government spent undisclosed sums on Palantir while giving Thiel NZ citizenship … that’s right, people].
In the United States, US Immigration is getting a large amount of information from police data-mining.Researchers have found mysterious Russia-linked malware that hijacks anti-theft software Lojack — Security researchers are warning that malware with suspected links to Russian cyber-espionage group and alleged Democratic National Committee hackers Fancy Bear is turning up in installations of Lojack, an anti-computer theft program used by many corporations to guard their assets.

Climate: London invaded by climate-change poisonous caterpillars — UK forestry officials are warning that oak processionary moth caterpillars have been sighted emerging from eggs in and near the city since mid-April. Each of the beastie’s 62,000 hairs contain the protein thaumetopoein, which can cause allergic reactions up to “skin and eye irritation, difficulty breathing and even anaphylactic shock.” The insects originate in southern Europe, but have had a presence in southern England since 2005. [Presumably, England didn’t used to be warm enough for them to thrive.]

Not-so-fresh Swiss waters — Emerging evidence toxins are also problematic in freshwater, which may even be the source. It didn’t take long for the Geneva team to find that many samples of Swiss ‘fresh’ water contained hazardous and toxic elements including cadmium, mercury and lead, in some cases in very high concentrations.

Arabian Sea’s dead zone is even bigger — A surprising new survey shows, the Arabian Sea features an oxygen-starved aquarium over twice the size of Tasmania – and it’s still growing.

North America’s zombie deer — Scientists’ worst fears over a so-called “zombie deer” prion disease currently spreading across the US and Canada are unlikely to come to pass, suggests a long-term study published this week in the Journal of Virology.
The fatal ailment, known as chronic wasting disease (CWD) and caused by a mysterious kind of protein called a prion, doesn’t seem capable of crossing the species barrier and spreading to humans – at least according to this experiment. But other research has found otherwise ,,,

Humans: Gates thinks millions could die in a flu pandemic. Bill Gates thinks there is a new flu epidemic lurking just around the corner and we are woefully unprepared for it. The billionaire philanthropist warned today that there is a “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes”. [Millions have died in flu pandemics before.]

The rate of autism diagnoses is continuing to increase. Researchers from 11 US states enrolled in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network were brought together and asked to analyse the medical and school records of more than 300,000 children who were 8-years-old in 2014. They estimated that about one in every 59 children had autism, a 15% increase from the one in every 64 rate reported two years earlier.

Japanese researchers find people with Type O blood survive injuries less — Looking at blood type alone, they found that 28% of people with blood type O died despite medical intervention, compared to 11% of people with any other blood type. [Ouch.]

Nikola is suing Tesla — In November last year Tesla revealed the Tesla Semi, a fully-electric truck that will have a range up to 800km and be able to haul a forty-tonne trailer. It looks and sounds quite impressive, but the Nikola Motor Company (a zero-emissions truck startup) wasn’t so enthusiastic.
In fact, the company believes that the Tesla Semi is infringing upon several of its design patents, so it’s suing for $US2 billion.

Nuclear:Human bone from Hiroshima reveals atomic bomb exposure — A technique originally intended for dating archaeological artefacts has been used to estimate the amount of radiation produced by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. It marks the first time a bone fragment from a victim of the explosion has been used successfully for such an analysis. The researchers measured a dose of 9.46 grays (Gy), which is very, very high. Even at half that dose of exposure, at around 5 Gy, a person who had their entire body exposed would be killed.

Underground nuclear test that did not stay underground — At 7:30am on December 18, 1970, the Baneberry test began at the Nevada Test Site. A nuclear bomb had been lowered into a hole a little more than seven feet in diameter. More than 900 feet underground, the bomb – relatively small for a nuclear bomb – was detonated.But things went wrong. About 300 feet from the hole where the bomb had been planted, a fissure opened in the ground and a cloud of radioactive dust and vapor began pouring skyward. It would rise 8000 feet into the atmosphere; the fallout would spread over Nevada and into California and other neighbouring states.

But hey, on the good side,there’s always That Perfect Meal. And here’s a fact you really ought to know already: the Food Foundation, an independent think-tank tackling the growing challenges facing the UK’s food system, corroborates that you can’t go wrong with seasonal vegetables. [Phew!]

Another excerpt from my forthcoming book:“Say you wake up one morning, and 40% of people no longer exist. That’s the honeymoon vision of apocalypse, as ridiculous as that phrase sounds … because it is ridiculous. People don’t just evaporate under almost any imaginable scenario. The immediate problem will always be dealing with the dead. There are 56 houses in my street. If there are three people in each, averaged out, that’s 168 people. At 40% mortality, that’s 67 bodies to cope with straight away.
Of course, even that’s far too neat. There’s almost no known event from our experience that simply kills 40% of any given population in a very short time frame. Deaths would begin, and the process would take time, and there would be distress, panic, hopelessness, fear, loathing … But bear with me.”

Trump offers North Korea fire and fury.[Oh, you thought I was joking with this blog?] The oh-so-really-really eloquent one said “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” said Trump. “They will be met with fire, fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with the fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.”[I bet Trump was a real a-hole even at kindergarten.] One has to wonder, when will we finally die out? Futurists, anthropologists, science fiction authors and others have been asked this question by Gizmodo.

Meanwhile, North Korea has secret plans to attack Guam.We know this, because North Korea stated “The Hwasong-12 rockets to be launched by the KPA [Korean People’s Army] will cross the sky above Shimani, Hiroshima and Koichi prefectures of Japan,” the statement said. “They will fly for 3356.7 km for 1065 seconds and hit the waters 30 to 40km away from Guam.” [Oh my God, how will we work out what North Korea is planning? Fiendish!!]

Meanwhile, Europe is already suffering the heat of Satan. At least two people have died over the course of the heat wave, which caused temperatures to spike as high as 44°C (111 degrees Fahrenheit) in southern Spain and 40°C in the French Riviera. Temperatures were forecast as high as slightly over 42°C in mainland Greece. It’s almost enough to make one wonder if this heat wave could be correlated with all those other heat waves across the world, or the inexplicable trend of the planet breaking global heat records on a regular basis. [Nope, You’re just being silly, Gizmodo.]Talking about Satan … Monsanto has been editing its own ‘independent’ product reports.

But wait! A global investment firm has also warned of an almost unheard-of phenomenon called Global Climate Change. A leading British global investment firm has a warning for its clients: if we keep consuming oil and gas at current rates, our planet is on course to experience a rise in global average temperatures of nearly 8°C (14°F) by the end of the century. This would make Earth basically uninhabitable for humans. [Whereas I thought investment firms were uninhabitable by humans. You see? Delusion is hardly exclusive.] And hey, now there’s a game for that. [This will be As Much Fun as TV3’s The Project.]

AI and Lesser Cocking Vestibulaton … Artificial intelligence networks have already come to the rescue of craft brewers, metal bands and guinea pig owners who are looking for wacky new names. Now, digital consultant Dan Hon wants to use those same neural networks to help Britain come up with even more amusing place names. This from the country that’s already come up with locales such as Papplewick, Blubberhouses and Picklescott and which called a river The Piddle. [I’m still reeling from the ‘Buttcombe Ale’ I spotted on tap in a Birmingham pub a few years back.]

Coasters are millionaire Silicon Valleyites who do virtually [get it?] nothing for loads of money. Yes it’s a thing. Aspirational?

And while we’re talking about rich a-holes, Peter Thiel,who recently got special citizenship in that citadel of freedom, New Zealand, on the special circumstances that he was a rich a-hole, apparently [this is always guaranteed to super-impress National politicians] has been selling Palantir data storage, analysis, and collaboration software to police departments throughout the US. Most of Palintir’s business, though, is with the military. [Doesn’t that just make you feel all safe and snuggly? And yes, LoTR fans, you’re right about the implications of the system’s name.]

Apple refuses to enable tech that would ‘save lives’ — Apple is still ignoring requests to enable a feature called Advanced Mobile Location (AML) in iOS. Enabling AML would give emergency services extremely accurate locations of emergency calls made from iPhones, dramatically decreasing response time. Google’s successful implementation of AML for Android is ‘already saving lives’. [And also, of course, enable you to be tracked with pinpoint accuracy by Agents of Despond like Peter Thiel.]

And you know I always like to end on a positive note: there’s a new way to tell airlines you hate them. Two airlines have dipped their wings into the waters of two-way texting. Hawaiian Holdings’s Hawaiian Airlines is adding the feature while JetBlue Airways took a stake in a software startup that will allow its call centre staff to start texting customers in the coming months. And they’re inviting you to ask questions, and maybe even complain. [Maybe?!]

According to new documents from New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the NSA illegally used technology to spy on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom.The New Zealand Herald first reported that the GCSB told the nation’s high court that it ceased all surveillance of Dotcom in early 2012, but that ‘limited’ amounts of communications from Dotcom were later intercepted by its technology without the bureau’s knowledge,” reports The Hill. [And this went on under Obama. Nothing like this would ever happen under a reasonable, rational man like Trump …]

In a major blow to the future of nuclear power in the United States, two South Carolina utilities said they would abandon two unfinished nuclear reactors in the state,putting an end to a project that was once expected to showcase advanced nuclear technology but has since been plagued by delays and cost overruns..[A reactionary lash-back.]

Two Chinese chatbots have proved they can develop real intelligence.The chatbots, BabyQ and XiaoBing were designed to use machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) to carry out conversations with humans online. But they have been pulled. Why? BabyQ, a chatbot developed by Chinese firm Turing Robot, had responded to questions on QQ with a simply “no” when asked whether it loved the Communist Party.
In other images of a text conversation online, which Reuters was unable to verify, one user declares: “Long live the Communist Party!” The bot responded: “Do you think such a corrupt and useless political system can live long?” Meanwhile, China is pioneering new ways of combatting dissent on the internet.

Electric vehicles not the answer to pollution — Professor Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit. Toxic air causes 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove, recently announced that the sale of new diesel and petrol cars will be banned from 2040, with only electric vehicles available after that.
But faced with rising anger from some motorists, the plan made the use of charges to deter dirty diesel cars from polluted areas a measure of last resort only. Kelly’s intervention heightens the government’s dilemma between protecting public health and avoiding politically difficult charges or bans on urban motorists. [But hey, how to measure that pious feeling?] And self-driving cars are confusing humans – and insurance companies.

Cats and dogs contribute to climate change — Pet ownership in the United States creates about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, UCLA researchers found. That’s the equivalent of driving 13.6 million cars for a year. The problem lies with the meat-filled diets of kitties and pooches, according to the study by UCLA geography professor Gregory Okin. [Hey, finally someone else to blame.]We’re all going to die from climate change anyway – it’s just matter of when.

No outside life in South Asia —Venturing outdoors may become deadly across wide swaths of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh by the end of the century as climate change drives heat and humidity to new extremes, according to a new study. These conditions could affect up to a third of the people living throughout the Indo-Gangetic Plain unless the global community ramps up efforts to rein in climate-warming carbon emissions. [Start tunnelling?]

Six figure salary to protect Earth from aliens — Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a hero? How about the protector of mankind? Well now NASA is looking for just that, and it’ll pay a six-figure salary for the honour. Other duties include advising Safety Mission Assurance officials on planetary protection matters and ensuring compliance by robotic and human spaceflight missions. [Too late. Just look at the White House.]

Users secret web habits ‘easy to expose’ — Two German researchers say they have exposed the porn-browsing habits of a judge, a cyber-crime investigation and the drug preferences of a politician. The pair obtained huge amounts of information about the browsing habits of three million German citizens from companies that gather ‘clickstreams’: detailed records of everywhere that people go online.

Student escapes kidnappers with nerves of steel and manual transmission — A college student in Columbia, South Carolina was kidnapped by three men at gunpoint. Fearing the worst, she used some Jason Bourne level-problem solving and her manual transmission car to get away safely. 20-year-old Jordan Dinsmore found herself in one of the worst situations possible when three men approached her, pushed her to the ground and put a gun to her head. The publication reports that they forced her to drive her car and withdraw money from an ATM and then told her that she was going to be taken to a location to be raped.
But Dinsmore had one advantage: when the men first put her into the car they couldn’t drive it because it had a manual transmission, so they made her take the driver’s seat. That is when she concocted a plan to escape … [So impressed!]

At least we can have a new beer, thanks to AI — Brewers are running out of beer names, so scientist Janelle Shane (who uses artificial intelligence for this purpose frequently) decided to set AI onto the problem. The results: an IPA called Yamquak, a Cherry Trout Stout and Fire Pipe Amber Ale. [Yikes!]

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Mark Webster | Mac NZ

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